Occasions or circumstances of revelation (
''asbāb'' ''al-nuzūl'', ) names the historical context in which
Quranic verses were revealed from the perspective of
traditional Islam. Though of some use in reconstructing the Qur'an's historicity, ''asbāb'' is by nature an
exegetical rather than a
historiographical genre, and as such usually associates the verses it explicates with general situations rather than specific events. The study of asbāb al-nuzūl is part of the study of Tafsir (interpretation of the Qur'an).
Etymology
''Asbāb'' أَسْبَابْ is the plural of the Arabic word ''sabab'' سَبَبْ, which means "cause", "reason", or "occasion", and ''nuzūl'' نُزُولْ is the
verbal noun
A verbal noun or gerundial noun is a verb form that functions as a noun. An example of a verbal noun in English is 'sacking' as in the sentence "The sacking of the city was an epochal event" (''sacking'' is a noun formed from the verb ''sack'').
...
of the verb root ''nzl'' ن ز ل, literally meaning "to descend" or "to send down", and thus (metaphorically) "to reveal", referring God (
Allah
Allah (; ar, الله, translit=Allāh, ) is the common Arabic word for God. In the English language, the word generally refers to God in Islam. The word is thought to be derived by contraction from '' al- ilāh'', which means "the god", a ...
) sending down a revelation to his
prophets
In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings from the s ...
.
Though technical terms within
Qur'anic exegesis
Tafsir ( ar, تفسير, tafsīr ) refers to exegesis, usually of the Quran. An author of a ''tafsir'' is a ' ( ar, مُفسّر; plural: ar, مفسّرون, mufassirūn). A Quranic ''tafsir'' attempts to provide elucidation, explanation, in ...
often have their origins in
the book itself (e.g. ''
naskh''), ''sabab''/''asbāb'' does not: Despite the appearance of the stem sbb over 11 times
Quran (
Q.2:166,
Q.18:84, Q.18:85 Q.18:89,
Q.22:15,
Q.38:10,
Q.40:36-37), none of the verses seem the least bit connected to a statement concerning the occasions of revelation.
Within exegetical literature, the use of ''sabab'' in a technical sense did not occur until relatively late: the material which would be later called by ''asbāb'' writers used alternate phraseologies to introduce their reports, such as ''al-āya nazalat fī hādhā''- "the verse was revealed about such and such"- or ''fa-anzala allāh''- "so God revealed/sent down". The term "sabab" in its technical sense (meaning "occasion of revelation") seems to begin to make its appearance in the works of
Tabari
( ar, أبو جعفر محمد بن جرير بن يزيد الطبري), more commonly known as al-Ṭabarī (), was a Muslim historian and scholar from Amol, Tabaristan. Among the most prominent figures of the Islamic Golden Age, al-Tabari i ...
(d. 922 CE) and al-Nahhas (d. 950 CE). Al-Jassas (d. 981) was the first to use the term regularly in introducing reports about the revelation of the Quran.
Origin
Modern scholarship has long posited an origin for the ''sabab al-nuzūl'' based largely on its
function
Function or functionality may refer to:
Computing
* Function key, a type of key on computer keyboards
* Function model, a structured representation of processes in a system
* Function object or functor or functionoid, a concept of object-oriente ...
within exegesis.
William Montgomery Watt, for example, stressed the narratological significance of these types of reports: "The Quranic allusions had to be elaborated into complete stories and the background filled in if the main ideas were to be impressed on the minds of simple men."
John Wansbrough
John Edward Wansbrough (February 19, 1928 – June 10, 2002) was an American historian who taught at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), where he was vice chancellor from 1985 to 1992.
Wansbrough is credit ...
, on the other hand, noted their juridical function, particularly with regard to establishing a chronology of revelation for the purposes of such mechanisms as ''
naskh''.
Rippin in turn rejected this, arguing that the ''sababs primary function is in ''
haggadic
Aggadah ( he, ''ʾAggāḏā'' or ''Haggāḏā''; Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: אַגָּדְתָא ''ʾAggāḏəṯāʾ''; "tales, fairytale, lore") is the non-legalistic exegesis which appears in the classical rabbinic literature of Juda ...
''/''qissaic'' exegesis, and that this in turn hints at its origin:
One thing common to all these theories is the assumption that the ''sabab'' is built around the Qur'ānic verse(s) embedded in it. In his extensive survey of early Muslim traditions regarding Muhammad,
Rubin
Rubin is both a surname and a given name. Rubins is a Latvian-language form of the name. As a Jewish name, it derives from the biblical name Reuben. The choice is also influenced by the word ''rubin'' meaning "ruby" is some languages. upends this consensus (while preserving Rippin's speculation about the ultimately ''qassaic''/story-teller origins of these reports) by arguing that most ''asbāb'' originally started as
prophetic biographical material into which Qur'anic verses were only later inserted:
Rubin bases that conclusion partly upon the very stereotyped way in which "linking words" are used to introduce Qur'anic verse into a report. Mostly, though, he relies upon the existence of multiple parallel non-Qur'anic forms of the narrative for most ''asbāb''. By assuming that a report's link to scripture would not be removed once established, the non-Qur'anic (and thus non-exegetic) version of the report is in fact the original one. Rippin takes issue with this last assumption, though, by arguing that the evidence does not preclude the creation of parallel ''sīra'' narratives even after the circulation of a supposedly "authoritative" Qur'anic one.
Outline and function
The Quran was revealed over a period of nearly twenty three years. Muslim scholars agree that the revelations of the Quran can be divided into two broad types: One type includes passages of the Quran which were revealed in response to specific events, incidents or questions put forward to Muhammad. The second type includes passages of the Quran which were not direct responses to any historical or social development in the life of the Muslim community. A thorough understanding of the first type of passages, therefore, depend on knowing the circumstances of the events which occasioned them. Such knowledge is an important tool for explaining the meanings of this type of Quranic verses.
One function of the ''sabab'' report is theological. As Rippin notes:
The occasion of revelation's primary function, though, is exegetical, and by enumerating its various uses within Qur'anic interpretation we visit nearly all the problems of concern for classical Muslim exegetes. These problems span the
hermeneutical spectrum, from the most basic units of
linguistic meaning to such technical intellectual disciplines as
law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vari ...
and
philosophy and all points in between. A major underlying difficulty encountered at all levels is the Qur'an's lack of structure. This extends beyond the question of
temporal ordering to one of basic unity of thought and expression:
The various levels of interpretation along with their typical problems are listed below in order of increasing hermeneutical complexity:
* ''
Lexical'': What is the meaning of a particular word?
* ''Intra-Versal/
Sentential'': Who or what is the
referent
A referent () is a person or thing to which a name – a linguistic expression or other symbol – refers. For example, in the sentence ''Mary saw me'', the referent of the word ''Mary'' is the particular person called Mary who is being spoken of ...
of a particular pronoun?
* ''Inter-Versal/
Pericopal'': What is the relation between verses? Do they constitute a single meaning/unit of thought, or are they distinct?
* ''
Narratological ("Qissaic")'': What is the story being told? Why do the characters in it react in the way they do?
* ''Historical/
Ethnological'': What events or personages are being described? What cultural practices are being reported and how do they relate the ''
jāhilī'' scene?
* ''
Legal ("
Hukm
''Ahkam'' (, ar, أحكام "rulings", plural of ()) is an Islamic term with several meanings. In the Quran, the word ''hukm'' is variously used to mean arbitration, judgement, authority, or God's will. In the early Islamic period, the Kharij ...
ic")'': What are the legal implications of a particular verse and how do these relate to the remaining corpus of
Islamic holy law? Is the ruling limited in scope to the circumstances or even unique instant in which it was revealed, or does it define a general principle with broad applicability?
A detailed examination of the function of ''asbāb'' at several of these levels follows. Unless otherwise noted examples all come from Rippin's ''The function of asbāb al-nuzūl in Qur'ānic exegesis'' (''BSOAS 51''). Quotations from the Qur'an are taken from the
Abdullah Yusuf `Ali translation.
Lexical/sentential
A demonstration of the two lowest-level functions of the ''sabab'' may be seen in the exegesis of verse 2:44 :
A ''sabab'' put forward by both al-Wāhidī (''Kitāb'' 22) and al-Suyūtī (''Lubāb'' 19) claim this verse was revealed about those Jews of
Medina who urged their converted relations to obey Muhammed's example even while they hypocritically refused to do so themselves (such
Jewish hypocrisy being a common Qur'ānic
polemical motif). The ''sabab'' thus fixes the meaning of the pronoun "ye", and also provides a
gloss for the word "right conduct" (''birr'') as the
Sunnah of Muhammed.
Pericopal
One theory of Qur'anic verse arrangement proposes a thematic/topical ordering of the verses (
ayat). This, combined with the Qur'an's allusive literary style (e.g. "the Qur'ānic 'they' which is frequently left ambiguous in the text"
) makes establishing
pericopal boundaries difficult, however. Does one verse continue the unit of meaning begun by preceding verses, or does it initiate a new one? ''Sabab''-material was used to both erect and pull down such boundaries, as their use with respect to verses 2:114-2:115 illustrate:
One report "suggests this verse
.2:115is a continuation of Q.2:114 which concerns the destruction of
mosques and thus that this verse, 115, intends that the destruction of mosques does not mean that one can no longer face a ''
qibla''".
Most ''sabab''-material, however, locate Q.2:115 in the context of prayers not delivered in the direction of the ''qibla'' under various extenuating circumstances, thus dividing it from Q.2:114 .
Narratological
The function of ''asbāb'' is most straightforward at the
narratological level, where the context given identifies the characters of a story, their motivations, and ambient circumstances which influence their behavior.
An extensive example of this is the ''sabab'' attributed to Ibn Ishāq (al-Wāhidī, ''Kitāb'' 22) for verses Q.2:258 and Q.2:260, detailing
Ibrahim's encounter with
Nimrod
Nimrod (; ; arc, ܢܡܪܘܕ; ar, نُمْرُود, Numrūd) is a biblical figure mentioned in the Book of Genesis and Books of Chronicles. The son of Cush and therefore a great-grandson of Noah, Nimrod was described as a king in the land of ...
. Because the ''sabab'' does not explain why the verses were revealed, only the story within it, though, this report would qualify as an instance of ''akhbār'' according to the ''sabab'' identification criteria later established by
al-Suyūtī.
A much more (in-)famous example of a narratological ''sabab al-nuzūl'' is the incident of the so-called
Satanic Verses. In it, verses
Q.22:52 and
Q.53:19-23 are woven into a single narrative. Muhammad, longing to be reconciled to
his people
''His People'' (also known as Proud Heart) is a 1925 American silent drama film directed by Edward Sloman about a young, Jewish boxer growing up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. , allows
Satan
Satan,, ; grc, ὁ σατανᾶς or , ; ar, شيطانالخَنَّاس , also known as the Devil, and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an entity in the Abrahamic religions that seduces humans into sin or falsehood. ...
to interpolate several verses into the recitation of ''
Surat al-Najm'' (53) recognizing the efficacy of the pagan goddesses
Allāt
Al-Lat ( ar, اللات, translit=Al-Lāt, ), also spelled Allat, Allatu and Alilat, is a pre-Islamic Arabian goddess worshipped under various associations throughout the entire Arabian Peninsula, including Mecca where she was worshipped alongs ...
,
Manāt
( ar, مناة pausa, or Old Arabic manawat; also transliterated as ') was a pre-Islamic Arabian goddess worshiped in the Arabian Peninsula before the rise of Islam and the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the 7th century. She was among Mecc ...
, and
al-'Uzzā. The pagans of Mecca are so pleased by this that they immediately cease their persecution of the Muslims, to the extent that a group of
Abyssinian refugees begins to return home. Yet Muhammad is later sternly chastised by the angel
Gabriel for this concession to Meccan paganism, at which point God reveals Q.22:52 to comfort him as well as the real versions of verses Q.53:19-23 in which the goddesses are belittled:
This ''sabab'' appears in Wāhidī (''Kitāb'', 177–178).
Historical/ethnological
For Muslims the definition of the ''
jāhiliyyah'' scene (i.e. Arabia's pre-Islamic age of "ignorance") was an important concern, but complicated by their religion's competing claims to be both a stark break with this past as well as a continuation of practices begun by "Islam" in its pre-Qur'anic,
ur-religion manifestations, as in worship at the
Kaaba.
Many "ethnological" ''asbāb'' exist for this purpose, with those put forward for Q.2:158 particularly illustrative of their function at this level of interpretation:
The verse concerns the ritual practice of
circumambulating between the hills of Safa and Marwa; the two ''asbāb'' cited by al-Wāhidī both describe the controversy regarding this ritual (Q.2:158's occasion of revelation) by reference to the ''
jāhilī'' scene. The first ''sabab'' states that the
pagan Arabs practiced this (ur-Islamically sanctioned) ritual, but that they so adulterated it with
idolatry that the first Muslims pressed to abandon it until Q.2:158 was revealed. The second ''sabab'' provides conflicting ethnological data, stating that the practice was instituted by Muhammed in opposition to the pagans' sacrifices to their idols.
[Rippin, ''Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices'', , pp. 10-11]
These ''asbāb'' have no legal incidence; they function merely to settle a matter of curiosity
as well as to contrast the Islamic dispensation with what came before, obviously to the benefit of the former. This imperative, plus the fact that much of the material is contradictory make such ''asbāb'' useful only for reconstructing the development of Islamic ideology and identity, rather than the pre-Islamic Arabian past.
Legal
Legal exegesis is the most hermeneutically complex level of interpretation for several reasons. One is that every ruling must be considered with respect to the corpus of
Islamic holy law. If the ruling contradicts some other one, does it
abrogate/mitigate its foil, or is it itself abrogated/mitigated? Note that the foil may not always be a particular verse or pericope, but a principle synthesized from multiple rulings. The second, even more basic, complexity resides in determining which verses have legal content. A seemingly proscriptive verse may be made merely polemical by interpretation, while a seemingly non-proscriptive verse may have actual legal import. Lastly there is the issue of juridical inflation/deflation (the latter termed ''
takhsīs'') where the scope/applicability of the ruling may be radically increased or decreased by exegesis.
The ''asbāb'' surrounding Q.2:115 have already shown how legal consequences may be injected into a seemingly non-''hukmic'' verse. The ''asbāb'' for Q.2:79 demonstrate the opposite:
Here the reports agree the verse is directed against the Jews, and so a proscription with seemingly broad applicability is almost completely deflated into a
polemical filip about Jewish alteration of holy scripture (''
tahrīf'').
Lastly, as an example of juridical inflation, is Q.2:104:
The ''asbāb'' put forward by the exegetes cannot establish the meaning of the probably-transliterated word ''rā'inā'', but they generally identify it as some sort of curse or mock which the Jews tricked the Muslims into incorporating into their own greetings. In any case:
As these examples amply demonstrate, supporting exegetical literature (e.g. hadith, ''sabab''-material) are often decisive in fixing the legal meaning of a particular Qur'anic verse/pericope. Appealing to the raw, unmediated text of the Qur'an as proof of consensus within traditional Islamic law for or against some practice is thus almost always a futile exercise.
History of Asbab al-Nuzul works
The earliest and the most important work in this genre is undoubtedly Kitab asbab al-Nuzul ("Book of occasions of revelation") of Ali ibn Ahmad al-Wahidi (d. 1075 CE). al-Wahidi mentions occasions of about 570 verses out of 6236 verses of the Quran. Wahidi's work is not only the first attempt to collect all the material regarding the occasions of revelation in one single volume, but it is also the standard upon which all subsequent works were based. al-Wahidi was born in the city of
Nishapur and he died there at an advanced age. He was a poet, philologist, grammarian and Quranic commentator. In fact, He was considered a great commentator of the Quran of his time. His main teacher was the famous Quranic commentator al-Thalabi (d. 1036 CE) and Wahidi seems to have enjoyed the support of the
Seljuq vizier
Nizam al-Mulk.
Another important work is by
al-Suyuti
Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti ( ar, جلال الدين السيوطي, Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī) ( 1445–1505 CE),; ( Brill 2nd) or Al-Suyuti, was an Arab Egyptian polymath, Islamic scholar, historian, Sufi, and jurist. From a family of Persian ...
(d. 1505 CE) which is a slight improvement of al-Wahidi's book. Suyuti wrote his book about four centuries after al-Wahidi. It contains more occasions of revelation compared to Wahidi's work. His work covers 102 chapters (
sura) of the Quran while Wahidi's work covers 83 suras. The name of his book is Lubab al-Nuqul fi Asbab al-Nuzul (meaning "The best of narrations concerning the circumstances of revelation").
No ''asbāb'' works from earlier than the 11th century are known, and it is unlikely that this genre of exegetical literature existed before then. Though there is a section titled ''Nuzūl al-Qur'ān'' in
Ibn al-Nadīm
Abū al-Faraj Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Nadīm ( ar, ابو الفرج محمد بن إسحاق النديم), also ibn Abī Ya'qūb Isḥāq ibn Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Warrāq, and commonly known by the ''nasab'' (patronymic) Ibn al-Nadīm ...
's 10th-century bibliographical catalog ''
Kitāb al-Fihrist
The ''Kitāb al-Fihrist'' ( ar, كتاب الفهرست) (''The Book Catalogue'') is a compendium of the knowledge and literature of tenth-century Islam compiled by Ibn Al-Nadim (c.998). It references approx. 10,000 books and 2,000 authors.''The ...
'' (including one ''Nuzūl al-Qur'ān'' attributed to the semi-legendary
Ibn 'Abbās as transmitted through
'Ikrima), there is no evidence to believe that most of these works ever existed, or that their ambiguous titles signify texts within the ''asbāb al-nuzūl'' genre. In Rippin's detailed examination of pre-18th-century exegetical literature,
other works include as follows:
* ''Asbāb al-nuzūl wa qisas al-furqāniyya '' by Muhammad ibn As'ad al-'Irāqī (died 1171). Contains ''sabab'' reports mixed with ''qisas al-
anbiyā'' (stories of the
prophets
In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings from the s ...
) material. The former seem independent of al-Wāhidī's compilation and are ''isnad''-less. Exists in two manuscripts copies, one at the
Chester Beatty Library
The Chester Beatty Library, now known as the Chester Beatty, is a museum and library in Dublin. It was established in Ireland in 1950, to house the collections of mining magnate, Sir Alfred Chester Beatty. The present museum, on the grounds of ...
(Manuscript 5199).
* A manuscript (Berlin
Staatsbibliothek, Catalog no. 3578). ascribed to al-Ja'barī, probably
pseudepigraphical
Pseudepigrapha (also anglicized as "pseudepigraph" or "pseudepigraphs") are falsely attributed works, texts whose claimed author is not the true author, or a work whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past.Bauckham, Richard; "Pseu ...
y. Consists of ''sabab'' and ''
naskh'' material interspersed, with the former containing very abbreviated ''isnads'' where only the first authority is listed. According to its final page this manuscript was written in 1309.
Though al-Wāhidī may thus be considered the father of this genre (a view consistent with his rather self-serving depiction of ''asbāb al-nuzūl'' as the key to all exegesis), al-Suyūtī made significant contributions to it as well, introducing such refinements as limiting reports to only those contemporaneous with the revelation itself (reports related to events described by the verse were reclassified as ''akhbār'') and developing a ''sabab'' selection criterion different from al-Wāhidī's rather mechanistic one of scanning for a select few "marker" introductory phrases.
''Sabab''-material did not originate with the ''asbāb al-nuzūl'' genre. The chief innovation of the genre was organizational (i.e. the collection of ''asbāb''-material within one text) and to a lesser degree methodological, and so while no work prior to al-Wāhidī's ''Kitāb'' may be properly called an instance of ''asbāb al-nuzūl'', material of equivalent function exists in the earliest ''hadith'' and ''tafsir''. This distinction will be maintained here by the use of the term ''sabab''-material for an occasion of revelation which does not necessarily come from a work of ''asbāb al-nuzūl'', and ''sabab'' only for one that does.
The reasons for ''asbāb''s status as a secondary genre are implicit in this bibliographical overview. Its late emergence (well into the classical period) plus its reliance on earlier ''tafsir'' works even for its raw material prevented ''asbāb al-nuzūl''s emergence as a major, independent approach to Qur'anic interpretation.
See also
*
Tafsir
*
Naskh
References
Further reading
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Asbab Al-Nuzul
Asbab al-nuzul
Quranic exegesis